We began our model fitting demonstrating that the fit of a full common pathway model (which permitted different parameter estimates across the sexes) as indicated by the AIC value (−2LogL = 42,781.93, df = 123,584, AIC = −204386.1) was better than a full independent pathway model (−2logL = 42,771.54, df = 123,576, AIC = −204380.5). Then, we found that this common pathway model fitted considerably better than a similar model that constrained to equality all parameter estimates in males and females (−2logL = 42842.83, df = 123,595, AIC = −204347.2). Therefore, in our subsequent analyses, we focused on common-pathway models with quantitative sex effects and turned to examining the presence and/or nature of qualitative sex effects.
